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Rhetorical Analysis of the TED Talk Video ‘How we’re priming some kids for college — and others for prison’ by Alice Goffman
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Rhetorical Analysis of the TED Talk Video ‘How we’re priming some kids for college — and others for prison’ by Alice Goffman
Introduction
The TED Talk video ‘How we’re priming some kids for college — and others for prison’ by Alice Goffman talks about college and prison as two pathways to adulthood, each with different experiences and outcomes for young people in America. The speaker Alice Goffman then narrows down and focuses on the prison pathway, the people likely to take the path, their circumstances and the outcome altogether. According to Goffman, young people, especially those coming from African-American and Latino backgrounds, tend to take the prison path due to their circumstances and the nature of their environments. She adds that these two groups of young people get arrested for engaging in minor offences that would otherwise be overlooked or solved within the school premises without involving the police. This paper will discuss the content and message in the Ted Talk video ‘How we’re priming some kids for college — and others for prison.’ The report will also analyze the rhetorical devices employed in the video to connect with the audience and convey the intended message.
In the video, Goffman argues a large percentage of young people in the Latino and African-American neighbourhoods end up in the prison channel compared to their counterparts who enjoy the luxury of standard living conditions. She believes that all young people should be treated equally and given the same opportunities regardless of their race or the condition of their environment. College is significant for any young person growing up and establishing a solid long-term career. College not only introduces one to opportunities, but it also provides a healthy environment to interact and make meaningful connections that prove beneficial in future. It brings ambitious and focused individuals closer to their dreams, dream jobs and stability. Despite being expensive, the college path remains the better option than the prison path because it gives young people a sense of satisfaction and pride, expands their knowledge about the world, and increases their stakes in the labour market.
On the other hand, the prison channel wastes away the life of young people and does more damage than the intended good in the name of reforms. Because of the torture and the unconducive environment as inmates, they become disoriented, with physical and mental issues. In addition, their records are ruined, and they find it challenging to secure jobs. The stigmatization in society is also unbearable to these young African-American and Latino individuals. This factor prompts most released convicts to isolate themselves, sink into depressions and join crime cartels to get a sense of belonging. Unfortunately, youngsters of colour bear the burden of stereotypical police force nature and unfavourable conditions. Like the rest of the students in better learning institutions and safe, neutral environments, they also have dreams, aspirations and hope for a better and brighter future.
As an institution that oversees the journey of young people and their transition to adulthood, prisons are very expensive to maintain. America uses approximately 40,000 dollars every year to finance and sustain state prisons. This amount is the monies of Americans working tirelessly daily to meet their endless needs, support their families and pay taxes. With the market trends, advancement in technology, and the rising cost of living, this amount will likely continue to increase in the future. This statistic implies that the tax burden on American citizens will continue to rise to contribute to the revenue used to facilitate government operations. It is undeniable that squeezing endless taxes into the budget of Americans to facilitate prisons causes financial strain.
Statistics show that the incarceration rate in America has risen by 700%. This statistic translates to 716 young people of colour out of 100,000. It means that the country has recorded the highest number of African American and Latino young adults imprisoned for minor mistakes in forty years. Young convicts lying in cold cells, receiving little and bad foods, unhealthy living conditions and constant mistreatments by wardens and fellow inmates in prisons despite all the funds channelled towards the initiative remains a mystery to many.
The speaker states that most young people arrested come from poor backgrounds. This conclusion comes from the fact that people of colour face discrimination in different country sectors, including the labour market. It has become challenging for people of colour to secure well-paying jobs in America. Therefore, they struggle to balance the rising living costs and the little finances they get as salaries and wages. To make it worse, the justice system, through the police, targets young people from disadvantaged communities to make arrest counts and not as a strategy to keep its people safe. The arrests made on young people of colour only increases their daily costs and forces their families into debt and financial crisis. The system forces these young convicts to pay court fees, lawyers and low-level warrants during an active court case.
Additionally, they are forced into house arrests and put in halfway houses to enable these hearings. They are also placed on probation and parole restrictions that only sets them up for arrests as the conditions are unrealistic and unfavourable considering their living standards. The government fails to realize that they are young and in a critical stage of their lives. Therefore, they require an adequate show of care, support and love. Such inconsideration by the justice system sends many of these young people to depression and unstable physical and mental health in the long run. Consequently, young African-Americans and Latinos live in constant fear of being arrested any minute, not because of the severity of an offence but because of their skin colour. The streets, schools and their homes are not safe anymore.
Alice Goffman uses various persuasive advertisement techniques to communicate and drive her message home. She employs logos, pathos and Ethos in her speech to accentuate the message and make it simple and comprehensive. In the case of logos, Goffman uses certified statistics to cement her statements regarding the high rates of arrests of young people with an African American and Latino background. Goffman uses statistics from She rolls out evidence that depicts how young people of colour are shifted to prisons while those from the dominant race enjoy their teenage hood and successfully join colleges to pursue their dreams. According to Goffman, the incarceration rates have risen by 700%. This figure is the highest it has ever been in forty years. She adds that this percentage translates to 716 young people of colour out of 100,00 people. The speaker gives these statistics to the audience to help them realize how wanting the issue is and how fast action needs to be taken by relevant parties to salvage the situation. She presents her inner thoughts using proven studies and statistics to persuade her audience to side with her point of view.
In addition, Goffman states that the government uses approximately 40,00 dollars every year to finance and sustain correctional centres in America. She mentions this amount to bring her audience to reality and understand the depth and harm of the prison path to Latino and African American young people. She presents logic to them to help them recognize the government’s failure through its justice system in delivering fairness to all young people across the country. Americans work so hard every day to fulfil their tax obligations besides their personal needs. Goffman understands that her audiences’ knowledge that government is extravagant in sustaining prisons, yet, it doesn’t commit to changing the situation on the ground, would bring them closer to her idea and make it more relatable.
Goffman also uses pathos as a rhetorical strategy to reach out to her audience in the best way possible. She uses pathos to evoke feelings and anticipate the response of her audience. Goffman gives a story of two boys, Chuck and Tim, members of the poor neighbourhood where she lived for a short while. Sympathize with the boys. Chuck was 18 years old and playing football while Tim was only 10. She explains how the boys had it rough growing up because of their financial crisis since their mother struggled with addiction and could not secure a job. She then elaborated to the audience how Chuck got arrested after pushing a kid’s face to the snow because the kid called his mum a crackwhore. After that, Chuck’s life takes an adverse turn and ultimately influences his brother’s. He became a high school dropout on the run because he had become too old to join senior year, thanks to the delayed court hearing and his inability to pay 225 dollars in court fees, respectively. In this case, the speaker uses the story to allow her audience to sympathize with the boys and feel the negative impact of the prison path on young people of colour and how it is beyond their control.
Goffman also uses Ethos to convey her intended message to the audience. She mentions how she has explored and witnessed false accusations and aggressive arrests of young Latinos and African-Americans in poor neighbourhoods in her speech. Her career as a sociologist played a vital role in establishing her audience’s trust and making the information she was giving out valid and credible. She further adds that she spent six years in Philadelphia, interacting with young people of colour and watching them get arrested. According to Goffman, young children used to play and imitate the aggressive and unlawful arrest of young people of colour by the police. Goffman uses Ethos to construct her appeals and arguments, capturing the audience’s attention and delivering the intended message.
Conclusions
It is undeniable that prisons have challenged the lives of many young African Americans and Latinos. Prisons typically stand between young African-Americans and Latinos devoted to pursuing their desired careers and fulfilling the American dream. The government, through various authorities, needs to radicalize society and eliminate the problem right from its roots instead of making unnecessary arrests that end up crowding prisons and burdening taxpayers in the long run. The speaker’s proper use of rhetorical strategies in the video has given a better understanding.
References
Goffman, Alice. “How We’re Priming Some Kids for College — And Others for Prison”. Ted.Com, 2015, https://www.ted.com/talks/alice_goffman_how_we_re_priming_some_kids_for_college_and_others_for_prison.
Rhetorical Analysis of the film Slavery by Another Name
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Rhetorical Analysis of the film Slavery by Another Name
The film Slavery by Another Name, written by Sheila Curran-Bernard and produced by Allan and Douglas Blackmon, is a powerful and informative film regarding slavery in the South even after the declaration of freedom. The film shares the white man’s injustices subjected to African Americans as enslaved people. It sheds light on the brutality and inhuman treatment black people faced at the hands of the white man through the lost stories of slaves and their descendants in the South during their journey after the emancipation proclamation and how they were drawn back into involuntary servitude. The director of the film uses various film-making strategies to convey the intended message properly, connect with the audience uniquely and make the film as relatable and comprehensive as possible. This paper will discuss the strategies employed by the director in making the film to capture the attention of his audience and reach their emotions.
The director kicks off the movie with a narrator giving a back story of the slavery activities in the South. The narrator uses a deep and assertive tone as he narrates these ordeals. He talks about how African Americans lived in a straightforward exploitative system led by white people. They were forced to provide hard labor against their will at zero cost. They were treated like animals, tied with chains, denied good food, clothed in jail-like attire, especially men, tortured, and at extreme points murdered for failing to satisfy the white man and his family. The laws passed and implemented by the white leaders targeted black people and aimed to bring them down and belittle them. Additionally, black people were denied access to mechanisms of achieving wealth for themselves and progressing like other citizens of America. They lacked the free will to benefit from their hard work in terms of wages and business.
The film director uses different camera ranges to portray specific messages in different scenes. He uses a close-up shot for scenes where speakers narrate their takes on involuntary servitude black people were subjected to by their oppressors in the South. The close-up shot is used when Khalil Muhammad, a historian, explains how slavery was overturned and black people could enjoy the fruits of their labor like white people. He aims to help viewers identify Muhammad as a character in the scene and communicate their emotions as he narrates his share of the story. The reaction shot has been used to help the audience understand the characters’ actions and consequent reactions. It guides the audience in passing a negative or positive judgment of the character reacting as far as their reaction and role in the film are concerned. A black woman cries and pleads to the oppressor to release her brother, cuffed in chains, yet he has done nothing wrong. These reactions shot in this scene guides the audience in passing a negative or positive judgment of the character reacting as far as their reaction and role in the film are concerned
The director uses soft, somber music as he shows pictures of slaves in brutal and disturbing situations. For instance, heavy chains on both the legs and arms, black people in plantation firms, and black people hanging from ropes after being hanged by the white man as the narrator explain how black people were subjected to white people’s oppression. The video then transitions smoothly to the speech of slaves, the descendants of slaves, and other speakers in the film who provide more information about slavery in the South at that time.
Dramatic irony is also utilized in the film to sustain the audience’s interest and create anticipation when the characters learn what the audience is already aware of. Despite the progress made in abolishing slavery, black people were involuntarily forced to offer labor to the white man, which makes no difference from the slavery times. The film shows black people with working equipment and a white man supervising them with a gun on his shoulders to show the irony and the failed expectations for a black man in the new era.
The director uses diegetic and non-diegetic sounds to capture the audience’s attention and emotions. He amplifies the diegetic sound of a judge pounding on the desk with the hammer while addressing how the federal government conducted their investigations and arrested the Cosbys when they pleaded guilty to subjecting black people to slavery. In the film, Barbra Belisle, a descendant, and speaker narrate how black people were picked and thrown into the system, while scenes of a black man escorted by the police and handcuffed are displayed simultaneously.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, the film is captivating and educative altogether. The choice of words by the director and the different rhetorical strategies employed in the film made it a success and conveyed his message in the best possible way. The ill-treatment and brutality forced on black people are apparent because the film drew the audience’s emotions and connected with them throughout the film. The desire for freedom by black people was justified because they had gone through a lot of torture and suffering at the hands of the black man.
References
Blackmon, Douglas. Slavery By Another Name. 2012.
Nudity Comfort and Social Attitudes Towards Nudity
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Nudity Comfort and Social Attitudes Towards Nudity
The human body is a powerful tool of expression and communication. The mode of dressing depicts one’s confidence, identity, and personality in Society. People dress up depending on their mood, occasion, and comfortability. The level of skin exposure is personal and is influenced by various factors. The presence of social media platforms where people can express themselves through pictures and videos has been a game-changer regarding traditional narratives of nudity (Wirtz et al., 170). Nudity is a social issue that has raised controversies among people from different cultures and backgrounds. Contemporary social norms vary as far as nudity is concerned. Most people believe nudity is the level of exposure or nakedness of the human body. Nudity perception and comfortability are massively influenced by one’s background and their parent’s perspective of nudity (Jaakkola et al., 75). The degree of nudity varies among different parents. This paper aims to discuss the influence of social media on Society’s attitude toward nudity.
Research Question; How has social media influenced Society’s attitudes towards nudity?
Hypothesis; I believe the media has positively influenced attitudes towards nudity, promoting comfortability and desensitization.
Literature Review
Research shows that nudity in the American culture is the ultimate test of body comfortability and acceptance. As a tool for self-expression, social media has facilitated this narrative and allowed society members to express themselves through different levels of nudity depending on their comfortability and confidence (De Vries& Bouke, 420). According to research, media users post pictures to convey various messages about themselves. Statistics show that women focus on making themselves look attractive on social media platforms while men focus on creating an active and independent character through their pictures. The level of nudity adopted by these two groups varies depending on their motivation and the trends in social media. Research suggests a colossal difference between nudity and sexuality seen and experienced in different social media platforms (Judd et al., 158). Most people confuse social media’s role in propagative body positivity through nude pictures and sexual content.
Studies conducted in American countries revealed that some cultures still believe social media has increased nudity, portraying sex, making it inappropriate and unacceptable (Hirvonen et al., 2021). However, this point of view has been challenged by different scholars. Social media platforms have enhanced body positivity, especially among women, and facilitated a shift towards confidence, self-love, and comfortability in their skin.
Social media has allowed for the establishment of programs that advocate for the desexualization of female bodies and celebrate the diversity of the female form. Research shows that the prevalence of social media access and use has increased awareness of the body-shaming challenges that most people, especially ladies go through in Society (Van et al., 159). For this reason, cases of body shaming and bullying, especially in learning institutions, are taken seriously, and punishment is administered accordingly to offenders. Consequently, individuals have come out and appreciate their different body types through social media. Agencies and programs that support non-sexual nudity and body appreciation have been established thanks to their broadcast and the need for urgent solutions facilitated by various social media platforms.
Statistics show that social media is an integral part of young people’s lives in modern society. Studies suggest that social media threatens young people’s social and sexual well-being with improper approaches and misunderstanding (Wright et al., 15). Social media contains all types of information regarding nudity and sexuality. Therefore, it risks young people’s exposure to inappropriate content that might trigger sexualization of the human body. Research shows that some advertisements used in various social media platforms promote body sexualization, especially for women, instead of uplifting and encouraging various body forms and freedom of expression.
conclusion
Social media has created a global village where people interact and express themselves freely through their bodies without fear of judgment. It has allowed many people to connect with their inner self and discover true self-worth through messages conveyed in nudity. Social media deserves appreciation for creating a neutral environment where people can normalize and use non-sexual nudity to reach out to others, make meaningful connections, and grow both mentally and socially. However, individuals need to be careful with the content they consume or post on social media. It is necessary to look out for the young generation who now have access to social media and are likely to misinterpret the intended message in nudity. Parents and instructors should take the initiative and expose children to proper learning activities that will open their minds and help them understand the significance of body appreciation and expression.
References
De Vries, Bouke. “The right to be publicly naked: A defense of nudism.” Res Publica 25.3 (2019): 407-424.
Hirvonen, Maija et al. “Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Social Media Messages on Sexual Health in a School-Based Intervention: Opportunities and Challenges Identified in the STASH Feasibility Trial.” Journal of medical Internet research vol. 23,2 e20898. 16 Feb. 2021, doi:10.2196/20898
Jaakkola, Maarit et al. “Useful creativity: Vernacular reviewing on the video-sharing platform Vimeo.” Culture Unbound 12.2 (2020): 73-92.
Judd Jr, Ben B., and M. Wayne Alexander. “On the reduced effectiveness of some sexually suggestive ads.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 11.2 (1983): 156-168.
Van Dijck, José, and Thomas Poell. “Making public television social? Public service broadcasting and the challenges of social media.” Television & new media 16.2 (2015): 148-164.
Wirtz, John G., Johnny V. Sparks, and Thais M. Zimbres. “The effect of exposure to sexual appeals in advertisements on memory, attitude, and purchase intention: A meta-analytic review.” International Journal of Advertising 37.2 (2018): 168-198.
Wright, Donald K., and Michelle D. Hinson. “How blogs and social media are changing public relations and the way it is practiced.” Public relations journal 2.2 (2008): 1-21.